Laggards No More, Big Companies Flock To Social Media

Until recently, social media has been largely experimental for most large corporations. No more, according to a new study from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research.

The study of Fortune 500 companies showed that not only Facebook and Twitter but the venerable social medium of blogging all have substantial roles among the largest companies:

* 28% of companies this year had corporate blogs, a big rise from 23% in 2011 and in fact the largest rise in blog usage since 2008. The gap with smaller, "Inc. 500" firms, 37% of which were using blogs last year, appears to be closing.

* 73% have at least somewhat active Twitter accounts on which tweets appear at least once a month, up 11% from a year ago.

* 66% of companies have a Facebook page, up 8% from last year.

* 62% have YouTube accounts this year, the first time the researchers tracked YouTube usage).

* Only 2% of large companies have Pinterest accounts so far.

Of course, none of these stats reveal how well these companies use social media--and I suspect many of them are still deep in learning mode.

Here's a nifty infographic the researchers prepared, with more details on usage in various industries: